My week didn't start out the greatest because I got a call from the Mission Office and Sister Pyrah, the secretary, informed me that Dorothy (94 year old woman I baptized in Mesa) passed away overnight. I took it pretty hard, that is a weird feeling to hear that someone that I helped teach and baptize just 2 months ago is now gone. After I thought about it a long while I realized that I know where she is and because she had been baptized, she is now in a better place. That is what the gospel is all about!
We taught Chanah last Monday, and she is preparing to be baptized on December 10th! She knows a lot, but we still have a few things to teach her. I have only known her for a week, but I am sure that she will be a great member of the young women and will be strong in the church from here on out! We also taught her again yesterday, the only thing she hasn't been doing every day is reading the Book of Mormon, but we gave her an assignment to read the first chapter and she is committed to doing it.
Thanksgiving was an eventful day! I guess you could say that it was fulfilling in more ways than one! We only ate two dinners this year, I was really full half way through the second one and couldn't finish everything. After we ate that dinner we spent our night going to members home and seeking referrals from them; we obtained a few, but unfortunately every house we stopped at everyone made us eat a piece of pie! I almost threw up a couple of time, but I managed to keep it all down. I counted and figured that I ate 13 pieces of pie on Thanksgiving day! I know that is really bad for me, but it wasn't my choice to eat it. Thanksgiving was also our preparation day, so we were able to relax a little and prepare for the weekend ahead.
Thanksgiving morning I ran a 5k! I have no idea why I decided to do it, but it sure was fun! They called it the Turkey Trot, and it was the 1st annual! It was a tough course with a lot of hills, but I made it! Half way through the race I got passed by a girl, but I knew deep down that I couldn't let her beat me, so I kept behind her about 50 feet awaiting the opportune time to pass her up. The last 100 yards of the race was up a giant hill and I knew what I had to do, so I sprinted as fast as I could and passed her! I finished 10th out of about 40 runners and my time was 25:21, which is 3 seconds faster than the 5k I ran a couple days before my mission. I loved the race, but was really sore for the next 3 days.
My Race Shirt and Official Number:
Zone Conference was Yesterday and that is why I am emailing today. It was a really great meeting and President Ellsworth gave us some wonderful counsel and guidance. Elder Ralphs and I gave a training about how to be finding people all of the time! Some missionaries in our Zone are struggling to find, but we hope we taught them well enough that they can step it up and become more successful in that area.
Yesterday we taught Lori again! What a miracle it was too. We texted her at about 2pm and asked her how she was doing, she replied by saying that she wasn't doing so good, physically and spiritually, so we asked her if we could come by and talk with her. She agreed to have us over at 4pm and so we were really excited that she made time for us on such short notice. As we talked with her I felt the spirit comforting her, we spoke about the problems that were going on in her life right now and we taught simple, yet powerful truths of the gospel. I explained to her that I was feeling the spirit and that the spirit was telling me to invite her to be baptized, then I asked her, "Lori, will you follow the example of Jesus Christ and be baptized?" She replied, "absolutely!" Then I proceeded to tell her about how fast the teaching process is with missionaries and how we only teach about 4 to 5 lessons before people are fully prepared to be baptized. I then said, "Lori, I know that this is going to sound really soon, but I promise you that this is what the Lord wants for you, because His spirit has told me to say this to you. Will you do all that you can, meaning to meet with us and follow what we invite you to do, in order to be baptized on the 17th of December?" Lori committed to that date and said that she will meet with us more often as well as fulfill the assignments that we leave with her! She told us, " You guys are going to have to work hard on me!" As she said that I smiled really big because that shows that she knows it will take effort on her part to make this happen by the 17th. What a miracle!
My week has been extremely full! I have had hardly any time to stop and think about what is going to happen the next day, but because the Lord loves me he has guided me through it all. I am so thank for Him. I testify that He lives! I literally heard his spirit as we taught Lori this week, He told me to invite her to be baptized and He also told me to ask her to be baptized on December 17th. I am so thankful that I as able to be in tune with the spirit and that I followed the prompting. I plan to act upon every prompting I receive.
-Elder Thomas
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